


Plans Laid

by twilight_shades



Series: Planning Strategies [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Babbling, Dirty Talk, Hand & Finger Kink, Kidnapping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 14:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11625972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilight_shades/pseuds/twilight_shades
Summary: It starts with them getting kidnapped, but, really, most of the troubles Barry has, he brings on himself – featuring a dexterous Leonard Snart and an extra awkward Barry Allen.Or, Len always has a plan on hand and Barry runs at the mouth.





	Plans Laid

**Author's Note:**

> AU after Season 1 of Legends of Tomorrow. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Do not own. Complete fiction.

Barry moans as he regains consciousness. His thoughts are sluggish as his head pounds. He’s lying on a floor. He can’t move one of his arms very much, it’s cuffed to something, though it seems much sturdier than standard police issue. God, if Eobard Thawne is back… He blinks his eyes open and finds he is cuffed to someone rather than something, the short chain running through a thick metal loop bolted to the floor. Whoever he is cuffed to is not moving, likely unconscious, and turned away. He manuevers around until he can see who it is. And, oh, oh, but he’s supposed to be dead, they said he died. Barry had gotten a few disjointed stories from everyone who had been there since some hadn’t actually witnessed his final moments and some had only witnessed parts of them (and a couple of those had also been knocked out). Barry smiles before he can help himself, Leonard Snart, alive, Captain Cold, back. The smile quickly falls as he thinks of all the possibilities. This Leonard Snart isn’t necessarily Barry’s, er, this Earth’s Leonard Snart. He could also be a time aberration or a remnant. Or he could be an earlier Leonard Snart. Or, hell, he could even be another evil speedster (there does seem to be an endless supply) disguising himself.

Snart, or whoever, no, Barry is going to go with Snart until he knows different, lets out a muffled groan and turns his head a little. Barry can now see a bruise near his temple. Snart’s eyes slit open and Barry can see just a sliver of that blue and then they open wider when he sees Barry looking at him. He blinks a few times and starts to move, looking like he’s trying to sit up. When his arm pulls on the cuffs, though, he goes stiff and his face pales. Snart stares at the cuffs with something like panic.

“Snart, what’s wrong?”

Snart’s gaze snaps up to Barry and he swallows and then his face goes blank and completely composed, like the last few moments hadn’t happened. “Nothing, kid. I always wake up lying on dusty floors of…” he pauses and quickly scans their location, “empty warehouses, handcuffed to people,” he says dryly.

“That’s not what I meant, though I’m not sure I would be completely surprised if this kind of thing did happen to you regularly.”

Snart snorts.

“Obviously there’s something about the cuffs that bothers you.”

“Well, kid, maybe bondage is your kind of thing, but it ain’t mine. Cuffs are usually not a good thing in my line of work.”

Barry blushes and stutters out, “I don’t- it’s not-“ before he stops and grimaces at Snart for sidetracking him. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with cuffs the last time I saw you in them. Or the time before that either.” If he’s the right Snart.

“Things have happened since then.”

It certainly seems like this Snart knows what he’s talking about. Barry feels the hope well up. “What things?”

Snart peers at Barry thoughtfully and there’s a slant to his mouth that reminds Barry of how he was about his father. Barry feels dread pool in his stomach.

“I was cuffed and the only way I could get loose was to use my gun to freeze my hand and break it off,” Snart says without a trace of emotion in his voice.

“The cuff?” Barry asks weakly, already knowing that’s not what Snart is saying, but in denial.

“My hand.”

Barry looks at the hand in the cuff and then looks up at Snart. “Is that…” he trails off, not sure how to finish.

“Apparently, Gideon can generate a limb from the scan she did when we came aboard the Waverider.”

“She can?” Wow. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“Of course, I didn’t know that until Hunter showed me after I had been walking around without a hand for a while.”

Barry looks at him in dismay. Jesus, his hand. Snart’s clever, elegant, long-fingered hand. That Barry has not thought about. At all. 

Snart suddenly cocks his head and looks intently at Barry. Then his bright, calculating eyes slide down to his hand and when Barry’s eyes follow the path, he’s shocked to realize that he’d reached over and started stroking his fingers over Snart’s hand. Barry pulls his fingers back quickly, flustered.

“Uh, so you’re you, then,” Barry says, trying to get his mind off Snart’s hand.

“Oh, you’ve got me cold, kid, I am me.”

Barry should scoff at the pun, but he can’t help the big, goofy grin that takes over his face. “I mean, I heard about the Oculus and I thought you were, um…”

“Scattered to the far ends of the timeline?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I think I was. But then I don’t know what happened, I felt something, something cold, and it reminded me. Of me, I guess. So, I,” Snart pauses and smirks at Barry, “pulled myself together.”

“Oh my God.”

“And I found myself in Central City.”

Barry huffs out a small laugh. “You love it here. This city is your home.”

“Exactly.”

Barry’s smile fades. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry if anything I said made you go off with Hunter. I absolutely believed you were a good man, and now there’s proof, you sacrificed yourself for _everyone_. But you died and I didn’t want that. I thought you could be a better person and you became a hero. But you shouldn’t have had to give so much. I feel like it was my fault that you were there.”

“Hey, now, first of all, _I_ make my decisions. Well, when not being manipulated by those Time Master bastards. Second, if I had found out someone was controlling the things we did before I met you, and the circumstances were me or Mick, I would have done the same thing. For Mick, but for Lisa, too. Nobody gets to manipulate my family. So I sacrificed myself for the world and for y- and for my team, too, but for Mick and Lisa _first_ ,” Snart says forcefully. Then he quirks an eyebrow at Barry. “Now, I gotta ask, how much influence do you think you have on me and what have you been thinking about doing with it?” he asks, his voice practically brimming with suggestiveness.

“I- I don’t- I haven’t- I wouldn’t-“

“Tell you what, kid, why don’t you think about that and get back to me. Maybe something with my hand. Meanwhile, think you can get out of these?” Snart says, pulling meaningfully on the cuffs.

Barry doesn’t know where to look, he’s so embarrassed. He pushes it back and concentrates on the last part. “I was drugged. Something really heavy-duty. I was waiting for it to work its way out of my system.”

“Hmm. Think whoever did this knows about your, hm, extracurricular activities?”

“I think they would have tried for something more elaborate than these cuffs if they did?” Barry says uncertainly.

“Any ideas about who?”

“Actually, the last thing I remember is getting home, nothing after that. You?”

“I had just made it back to Central. I’m not even sure where I was in the city and bam!”

“Wait, so how long has it been since you, uh, like, coalesced?”

Snart shrugs. “A few hours, maybe. How long since I exploded?”

“I didn’t hear about it for a while and you were on a timeship, but more than a few months, I think,” Barry says apologetically.

“Great.”

Just as Barry’s about ready to try to phase through the cuffs, they seem to just fall off. He blinks and looks down. Snart’s hand is free too. He looks up at Snart and finds him tucking something up his sleeve. Snart finishes and straightens his jacket and then looks over at Barry. He raises an eyebrow when he finds Barry staring at him. Barry looks pointedly down at the now open cuffs. Snart gives a rather careless shrug at how easily he’s gotten them out. But Barry’s confused about one thing. “Why’d you ask if I could get out if you could do that?”

“Maybe I just wanted to know.”

Barry squints at him and thinks that’s probably at least partly true. Snart’s always been interested in his abilities. But he thinks part of it was Snart didn’t necessarily want to reveal the extent of his lockpicking abilities if he didn’t have to, but then didn’t want to wait for Barry or maybe… _couldn’t_ wait for Barry.

Snart rises smoothly from the floor, Barry much less so, almost tripping over the cuffs. Snart pauses and looks around with a frown. Barry looks around too and asks, “You think it’s a trap?”

“Maybe it’s a test.” He looks at Barry consideringly. “Why would they want me and… someone who’s a bit slow?”

“Hey!” Barry yelps, before he stops and thinks. Snart is working pretty hard to keep from giving away anything about Barry. “You think someone’s listening?”

Snart gives him a look. “Yes. I would absolutely tell you about what’s happened to me if I thought someone was listening,” he says, sarcasm so thick in his tone Barry almost feels bludgeoned by it.

“Then why have you been so careful about not saying _anything_ about me?”

Snart looks briefly startled before his face goes blank. “Habit, I guess,” he says nonchalantly.

Barry stares at him for a second and then says, “I think you’re lying.” Barry doesn’t know _why_ Snart’s watching his words, but Barry’s pretty sure that isn’t habit.

Snart gives a little smile. “Well, I am a liar.”

“And a criminal,” Barry says and realizes he’s smiling right back, even though the reminder should be painful. Somehow it isn’t.

Snart turns and walks away. Barry, slightly bewildered, watches him for a few moments before he sees that Snart is headed for a door in the back that Barry didn’t even notice. Barry stumbles after him. They are almost to it when there’s a loud noise from the other side of the warehouse. Barry looks over and the door over there slams open, several men in suits with guns coming through. One says something about how they should have left a guard and the man in front, who’s wearing in an improbably orange suit, handsome in a loud and sort of a fierce way, throws a glare at him and then twists his head back and calls out, “Leaving already, Leo?”

Snart sighs and turns around. He looks the man up and down coolly (hah!) and says evenly, “The accommodations leave something to be desired.”

“Aw, and after I went to so much trouble to find the right… amenity.”

Snart slides a quick sideways look at Barry, but doesn’t say anything.

“No comment? No pun? I’m disappointed, Leo. You always have such a quick tongue,” the man in orange says, a sharp smile on his lips.

“What do you want, Ricky?” Snart’s expression is bored, though his voice fairly drips with disdain.

The man in orange, Ricky, Barry guesses, stops smiling. “Riccardo,” he corrects angrily, before putting a genial smile back on his face. “I have a job for you.”

“Could’ve just called,” Snart says.

Riccardo says, “You’ve been incommunicado for quite a while. And, anyway, I wanted to impress upon you how important it was to me. I wanted to give you incentive. I even made sure we brought along someone you’re comfortable working with. Who better than someone who worked with you and your father and yet somehow didn’t get dead or caught up when you did. And even though he works for the PD and gave a bogus name, he’s still around. He must mean something to you.”

Barry is completely freaked out, not sure what to do, this is bad. They know who he is, who he works for, and that he’s worked with Snart. The only way he could make it worse is by revealing his powers. 

“Of course he means something to me. He has inside information, that’s why I recruited him. I told him to leave when things went south, knew he could be useful later, especially if he didn’t get caught up. Thought about having him tank some of the evidence, make a mistrial of it, but I knew I wasn’t going to be inside for very long, so I decided to save that for a rainy day. He gave a fake name so that when my father talked about it because he absolutely would have talked about it, nobody would know. Though you somehow found out. Then things got a little hot for me and I had to put myself on ice for a while,” Snart says, calm and collected, like he didn’t just pull that out of thin air.

Riccardo looks at Barry speculatively. Barry tries to look like he’s someone who would pass on information to a thief and tamper with evidence for him. It shouldn’t be that hard, he kind of did do something like that for Snart. Riccardo nods thoughtfully, “Well, then, you should be all set to take him with you to Capresi’s big weekend do at his compound in Keystone. Someone’s put it about that you have a way into First National which has something in the deposit boxes he wants. He’ll be sending an invite for you and a guest. You can bring whoever you like, but if you don’t bring Barry Allen, here, with you, I guess I’ll have to bring him with me. He’s pretty easy to find. And I will be there, watching,” Riccardo smiles unpleasantly. “You need to get a file named Cistern out of his office, make a copy, put it back before he even knows it’s missing. I don’t care if you accept the job for First National, just give him information, or turn him down, as long as you don’t make him suspicious. It starts on the 19th and goes through noon on the 21st. That should leave you plenty of time to plan and plenty of time to do the deed.”

Snart inclines his head. 

Riccardo smiles, looking pleased. Then he and the other men head out, without looking back. 

Once they’re gone, Barry looks at Snart, perplexed as to why he had agreed. “What was that?”

“You heard all of that.”

“I really don’t think I did. I mean, yeah, I heard what he said, but I’m pretty sure there was stuff he wasn’t saying that _you_ heard loud and clear and I did not.”

“Think so?”

“Oh my God, why are you being so obstructive? This does involve me. He said you were supposed to bring me or he would, though I don’t know how he thought he would get me to go. Oh, wait, was that a threat?”

Snart looks exasperated. He closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then opens them. “This whole thing was a threat. It was a demonstration that they can get to you, that they know who you are and what you do. Well, your day job, anyway.”

“Yeah, I got that, but, like, how is it a threat to you? They took me before you told them about me being useful, so it can’t be about that. And now that I think about it, what exactly was the point of you telling them that? I thought, then, that they thought you were, I don’t know, involved with the PD somehow, but that’s obviously not true. I’m being used as leverage against you, but I don’t understand why, unless you’re really loyal to people you’ve worked with? But, if that’s the case, why would you make me seem even more important?”

“No. There are only a few people I’m loyal to, and sometimes not even to them, not even when I should be,” Snart says, frowning a little.

“Lisa and Mick,” Barry guesses.

Snart nods. “And…” he trails off, looking reluctant.

“And?”

“And anyone I’m having sex with.”

“Oh, well, that’s good, nice, I mean, yeah.”

Snart stares at him, like he’s waiting for Barry to realize something.

“Oh! Oh, Riccardo thinks you’re, uh, sleeping with me.”

“Yes.”

“Is that, like, common knowledge in certain circles, that they can use someone you’re, um, sleeping with against you? Geez, no wonder you don’t date.”

“No, it’s not common knowledge.”

“Then how does Riccardo know?”

“Firsthand knowledge.”

“Ah.” Wow, that’s kind of awkward. “And the stuff about how useful I am?”

“So if this goes sideways, Riccardo’s first inclination won’t be to kill you, so you’ll have a chance to figure out how to do your thing without exposing all your secrets.”

“Oh, well, that’s nice of y- Wait, you’re going to do it?”

“Mm.”

“But, but we’re not, uh, we haven’t, um, had sex.”

“Oh, really? I’d forgotten,” Snart says dryly.

“Shut up,” Barry grumbles. “But, why are you going to do it? I mean, I can absolutely get away from them and if they were to try to, I don’t know, ruin my reputation as a CSI, I don’t think it would be believed, but even if it was, I’m the one who butted my way in.”

“I like a challenge.”

“I think that’s true. But I also think that maybe Mick and Lisa aren’t the only ones that you’d step up for, anymore.”

“Whatever. Hope you have a tux, at least one night at Capresi’s will be probably be black tie. Also, practice calling me by my first name. Calling me Snart will attract unwanted attention. And don’t call me Lenny.” With that, Snart heads for the door and makes it out this time.

Barry stands there, dumbfounded for a few moments, having just become conscious of the facts that for the job, he’s not only supposed to be there, but that he’s supposed to be there as Snart’s, (Leonard? Hmm, no. Leo? Wow, no. Len? Len.) Len’s guest, like, _as a couple_.

~~~

Barry’s in the passenger seat of a really nice car that he’s hopes isn’t stolen. Oh, who is he kidding? It’s either stolen or bought with stolen money. He hopes it isn’t traceable to Len. Or no, um, that sounds really bad for a CSI to hope. He hopes any case connected to it never crosses his desk. That’s… better. Barry bounces his right leg and taps the fingers of his right hand on the armrest. His eyes keep sliding over to Len. It’s really, really not fair how good Len looks in a tailored three-piece gray suit with lighter gray pinstripes, an ice-blue dress shirt, and a gray, white, green, and blue paisley tie. Barry has no illusions about himself – he looks presentable in the navy blue suit and white dress shirt, but Len is in a class by himself. Even though Len had had the suit Barry’s wearing sent over to Barry along with several other outfits, apparently not trusting Barry to dress himself (he’s probably right not to, Barry’s not much for tailoring and given his long limbs, a lot of off the rack clothes that fit his arms and legs swim on him in other dimensions). 

Putting on the suit, Barry had thought that he cleaned up well and felt like he maybe wouldn’t look out of place on Len’s arm. But then Len had showed up, looking like he should be on the cover of GQ. He’s tall, about as tall as Barry and in a fitted suit, it’s easy to see how slender Len is, more so than Barry, but somehow, even with the muscle Barry now has, Barry still looks gangly sometimes, whereas Len looks well-proportioned and refined. Weird, Barry had kind of thought of Len as bigger than him, but he supposes part of that was the parka and the cold gun which Barry’s now sure that Len deliberately uses to that effect. Of course, Len’s personality and panache often make him seem like the most prominent person in a room. That, plus the fact that he’s so striking really make it hard to not focus on him.

“What?” Len asks.

The question startles Barry, who realizes he’s actually been sitting there staring at Len. “How do you look so good?” Barry blurts out, and then closes his eyes in mortification, feeling his skin heat from the no doubt brilliant blush he’s now sporting.

“Practice.”

Barry’s eyes fly open because what?

Len is looking at him from the corner of his eyes and smiling faintly.

“Oh, funny.” Then trying to extend the joke, he asks, “Can you show me how?” except it comes out a little too plaintively.

Len gives him a brief frowning glance before looking back at the road. “Think you’re a natural, kid,” he says mildly.

Oh, did he just say he thinks Barry looks good? Barry’s pretty sure he did, maybe even implied that he’s better looking than Len, which just isn’t true, but wow, so flattering because Barry thinks he means it. “I- Thanks.”

Len just nods.

They sit in silence for a few moments. The car must be really expensive because Barry can barely hear any road noise. “I could put on some music,” Barry suggests.

“You could. I just thought you might have questions.”

“Oh, yeah, I should probably have questions.”

Len laughs.

“Hey, I thought a lot about this, but it was mostly thinking about all the ways I could mess up or nightmare scenarios where this thing got raided by CCPD and I had to explain to the captain or Joe what I was doing there.”

“If you do something you think is stupid, pretend like you meant to do it. If we get raided, which by the way, wouldn’t be by the CCPD, since this is in Keystone and the KPD doesn’t like the CCPD horning in on their jurisdiction, I would create a distraction so you could speed off.”

“That’s, that’s- Thanks.” God, Barry feels like a tongue-tied idiot, what is going on? Yes, he can be awkward, but this is crushing-on-Iris-in-high-school levels of awkward. Crap. He can’t, he cannot be crushing on Captain Cold. He totally is. That explains a few things.

“Yes, it does.”

“Tell me that I didn’t say that out loud,” Barry pleads, horrified.

“You didn’t. I’ve apparently developed some sort of proximity-based telepathy,” Len says solemnly.

“Really?” Barry asks, shocked.

Len gives him a side-long glance, face expressionless, until one side of his mouth quirks up just a bit.

“You are a horrible person.”

“Despite your allegations of my _goodness_ , I thought that fact was well-established.”

Barry groans. “I don’t suppose you could pretend I didn’t say it,” Barry asks hopefully, wearing his best puppy-dog expression.

“Say what?”

“That I- Shut up. Look, just, please, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll do… something for you?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. No, wait! No, I won’t. Wow, that was badly thought out. I, uh, I won’t talk, like at all. That’ll make everything really easy for you and you can be sure I won’t say the wrong thing to anybody,” Barry finishes excitedly, sure he’s hit on something Len will want.

“Barry, if you don’t think I took your awkward puppy self into account when making my plans, you are sadly mistaken.”

“Hey,” Barry squawks. “Ugh, okay, just please.”

Len looks thoughtful for a few moments, like he’s actually considering it. “Nope.”

“Why not?” Barry asks, and yeah, he’s kind of whining, but geez.

“I like it.”

“Oh,” Barry says softly. Please, please, please don’t be playing. Please, please, please mean it. Please, please, please like me back.

“Barry, you’re talking out loud again.”

Barry cringes. “Oh,” he says miserably. He buries his face in his hands.

“Wow, kid, your self esteem…” Len trails off.

“I know,” Barry says into his hands. “But you never would have noticed me without the speed. And without it, I’m just, you know, geeky, awkward, weird Barry.”

“Barry, you show up in a skin-tight suit, I guarantee people will notice, whatever your speed. But even if I noticed you because of your speed, so what? I didn’t make a deal with you because of your speed, I made a deal with you because of your chutzpah and because you appealed to my ego when you made it a challenge. You are more than your speed. And I can’t believe you got me to give you a believe in yourself speech.”

Barry snorts and looks up at him. “Okay, so maybe it’s not just the speed, maybe you actually like me. Though, really for someone who likes me, you’ve iced me pretty severely a couple of times.”

“You held a gun to my sister’s head, whether or not you intended to harm her, and you could have easily caused her serious injury whisking me off my bike the way that you did. I like playing games with you, but when it comes to my sister’s safety, I ain’t playing. And I don’t mind waiting until my revenge is ice cold before serving it. Mostly. I think you should count yourself lucky that I didn’t ice your head,” Leonard says, his voice doing that thing where it goes a bit deeper like it always does when he gets menacing.

“Right, um, yeah, okay. You know, it’s really disconcerting how attractive I find you when you’re sort of threatening me.”

Leonard glances over, eyebrows raised. “Did you mean to say that out loud?”

“Yes? Should I not have?”

“No, Barry. You just go on and tell me everything you find attractive about me. As a matter of fact, why don’t you go ahead and tell me everything that gets you going in general.”

“Oh, uh, I, uh, I-“

“Don’t get shy on me now. I promise I won’t use it against you. Well, I won’t use it against you in any way you won’t enjoy.”

Barry swallows. He tries desperately to get his brain back online to say something suggestive back, but he has so many things running through his head that are really not helpful for thinking clearly. So, while it’s exasperating, it’s not that surprising that what bubbles up out of his mouth is, “Hands.”

“Oh, yes, my hands. I’d almost forgotten about your thing for them.”

Barry does not believe that for a second.

Len gives him calculating look before looking back at the road. And then he starts talking, his voice lower, with less of a drawl. “I bet you like to be touched. I would like touching you. I bet you’re really responsive. You’d quiver with anticipation. I’d run my finger lightly down your arm, just a little taste, to get you primed.” Len holds the steering wheel steady with his left hand and then runs the index finger of his right hand lightly down the side of the wheel in demonstration.

Barry squirms a little in his seat.

“I would run these two fingers,” Len says, holding up his right index and middle fingers and waving them slightly, “down the center of your chest, down over your navel, down to your waist,” and then he reaches over and drags them lightly over the car’s central dash between knobs and over buttons until he gets down almost to the gearshift.

Barry’s breath catches.

Len pulls his hand back. “Not just yet. I’d run them over the outside of your thigh.” He reaches over and slowly runs the fingers along the edge of the seat right next to Barry’s thigh.

Barry bites his lip to keep from moaning aloud.

“Then I’d bring them to the inside of your thigh.” Len rests his fingers on the center console and slowly moves them closer to the gearshift. “I’d maybe tease a little.” He makes small circles on the console.

Barry is so hard in his pants right now, just from this. He’s sure that when Len actually touches that gearshift, he’s just going to come. That does not stop him from urging Len on, “And then…”

“Sorry, Barry, we’ll have to continue this later.”

“What? Why?” Barry demands.

Len gestures forward as he turns onto a private road, to the gate and guard shack that are at the end of it. 

Barry lets out a tiny dejected groan, glad that there a couple of cars ahead of them so he has time to calm down.

~~~

They are in the Capresi estate ballroom with lots of mobster milling around, making fake nice. Barry can tell how very much most of the ones who come up to Len don’t like him, but their wariness and relative politeness make Barry pretty sure that they respect him. Then a very large, very animated man in a deep purple suit with his brown hair in a pompadour comes over. “Capresi,” Len informs Barry in an undertone.

Len gets the attention of a dark-haired woman in a green dress. Len says something in what Barry thinks is Polynesian to her. She laughs and nods. Len tells Barry that she will look after him and then lets himself get whisked away by Capresi. Looking after Barry apparently involves the woman rebuffing anyone who tries to get near him with a narrow-eyed stare. Barry is very bored when Len rejoins him a little under an hour later. 

Len asks if Barry wants to head up to their room and Barry nods thankfully. They get to the room and it’s very opulent, more of a suite than just a bedroom. Barry wanders through the room and ends up by the bed. He stares at the bed. It’s a really big bed. 

Len comes over, catches him staring and says, “Barry, relax, we don’t have to do anything.”

Barry blinks and then frowns. “You don’t want do?”

“Of course I want to. With how you reacted in the car, I’ve been thinking about blindfolding you and seeing if I can bring you off with just my voice, telling you all the things I want to do to you.”

Barry shivers at the thought because Len’s voice, when it takes on that deeper, darker tone, is mesmerizing. “That, that, we should do that,” Barry says, nodding frantically.

“We can, you just seemed to have a less than enthusiastic response to the bed.”

“Oh, well, I just wasn’t sure that I wanted our first time to be in a mobster’s guest room,” Barry says and freezes, because they hadn’t actually had that discussion. He immediately goes into babble mode as he is prone to when nervous, “I mean, first time, if you want there to be more times. It could just be one time that you want, that would be okay! One time would be great! But so would more times. Or dating. But only if you wanted that! Or more! We could move in together and get a pet Fennec fox together and maybe get married someday.” Barry is finally able to stop himself from talking, probably because his awkward self can’t actually figure out a way to top that.

Len blinks. “Fennec fox?”

“After all that, _that’s_ the part you question?”

“I didn’t know you could keep them as pets,” Len says with a shrug.

Barry hangs his head. He supposes he deserves to be made fun of.

“Hey.”

Barry makes an acknowledging noise.

“Barry.”

Barry looks up.

Len has small, fond smile on his face. “More times than just one. Dating. With an option for more.”

Barry smiles, feeling effervescent. “Really?”

“Really. But no more proposals before the six month mark.”

“I didn’t-” Barry stops because he kind of did. He’s thrilled both that Len is talking like they have a good chance of making that six month mark and that he is even open to considering marriage then. “Six months, from today. Okay. What about moving in together? When can we talk about that?”

Len shakes his head, an amused expression on his face. “Let’s say four months.”

“Three.”

“Four.”

“Three and a half?” Barry suggests hopefully.

Len concedes. “But just talking about it.”

“And the fox, too, right?”

“Yeah, alright, we can talk about that too, then.”

Barry kind of wants to clap, he’s so happy and excited. But something else occurs to him. He steps in close to Len. Barry smiles and tilts his head and leans in a little and waits for Len to meet him, which Len does. Barry closes his eyes and presses his lips to Len’s. It’s sweeter than Barry had imagined their first kiss, soft and slow. He slowly pulls back and opens his eyes and Len’s eyes have a heat that promises that the next kiss will have the intensity Barry was expecting this time. 

Len smiles at Barry and says, “Let’s get out of here.”

“What? Don’t you have to do the thing with the file?”

“Oh, it’s done.”

“When?”

“When I went with Capresi. It was easy enough to create a few minutes’ distraction. Got the file, copied it, put it back.”

“But I thought his security was really good.”

“It is, but _I_ am excellent.”

Barry rolls his eyes, not for the statement, but for the smugness. “And we can just go?” Barry asks skeptically.

“I’ll have to go and pass the file off to Riccardo.”

“And you’re just going to give it to him and be done?”

“There may be some changes that might put him in quite the predicament when he uses the information, but he’ll think it’s because of Capresi.”

Barry feels like he should have been expecting that. “Of course.”

“After I hand the file off, I’ll go down make my excuses to Capresi, confiding in him that when we came up here, you told me how uncomfortable you were around everyone. He’ll buy it, you stand out like a beacon.”

“Were you ever planning to stay?”

“Sure, if I hadn’t gotten a chance so soon. And I’d figured on staying the night even so, but we don’t have to. Kid, you got to have a plan, but then you got to have several alternative plans, and then you got to have a back-up, because plans fail and you got to be ready to throw away a plan when you need to, or even when you just want to.”

“Oh. Okay, then, let’s go.”

Len looks at Barry speculatively. “You know, there’s a place not all that far from here I could leave the car for a while.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“So you could flash us to somewhere, hmm, _appropriate_ for our first time. Unless you want to wait until after the long drive back?”

“No, no, your idea seems good, we can do that.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in a few minutes. In the meantime, you should make a plan for what you want to do.”

“And have some alternatives and a back-up, just in case,” Barry says playfully.

“Yes, because funny thing about this type of plan, you can do one after another after another and count them all successful,” Len says with a wicked grin.

Barry gulps. “I’ll, uh, think about it.”

“I’m sure you will. I have faith in you. You’ll rise to the occasion. I, myself, will be up for almost anything.”

It’s not until after Len leaves the room that Barry recognizes the puns. He groans and then laughs. He wonders if he could work a pun into a proposal. Just because he has to wait six months to do it, that doesn’t mean he can’t start planning. But, right now, he has some other plans to come up with. Crap, he thinks, it’s contagious.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you find any typos or if the format is messed up or if you think I need any tags.


End file.
